@seethepoet

Open, for Closure…

So, for the past year I’ve been working on this book. I walked away from everything to do it. I walked away from a certain life, from a certain livelihood.

The stories, the feelings, the emotions, and all that came out of me in this process, I could never explain. It hurt to remember and to recall. It hurt to recognize that these things were my reality, were my past.

And 6 months ago (January 26) I even stopped cutting hair in order to focus on it. I did that against advice and better judgement and common sense. I did it because my heart told me to. I did it because my spirit spoke to me what my heart was saying. I did it because my mind was willing to listen to both my heart and spirit, because for so long I had fought doing such. And thus I went further into a seclusion. Further into an isolation. To get what I had been searching for all these years.

And so, in these last 6 months I have experienced the most amazing of revelation and recollection. I’ve wandered through the bowels of history and flushed out feelings and parts of me that had long been compacted and obstructive to the natural flow of me being able to live a certain freely. And in these 6 months I’ve allowed myself to just stop. I stopped trying to do “everything”. I stopped trying to “make it work”. I stopped trying to “prove myself”. I stopped holding everything in. And I began to let it all out. Even what I didn’t put to those pages, I spoke to myself. I faced my self and recognized who I was and who I had become. I faced myself as a human. I realized that I was not “the only one”, not the demon, not the monster, not the negative image that I had imagined myself to be. And I faced my hurt. I even faced those who had hurt me. I faced the largest hurts of my life and stood firm in the presence of them. And I didn’t run, like I used to. I didn’t fold, like I used to. Instead I stood there. Instead of loathing, I laughed.

And in these 6 months, things that I did not expect happened. Things like, my health improving. 15 plus years of hypertension came under control. My prescription medicine dosage was lowered. One medicine was taken away all together. I didn’t workout, in fact I had canceled my gym membership 7 months ago because I couldn’t afford it. I didn’t go to therapy or get some alternative treatment. I actually went into a much darker place. I didn’t learn a technique, breathing or meditation. Nope, none of that. I have probably been more anxious and on edge than ever because I had found myself broke, immobile, and in this spiritual sense of solitude that had alienated me from what was once, “normal” and routine.

But yet I was getting better. Healthier. Freer. I felt so much better. I stopped communicating with 95% of the people that I had been in contact with. I did that so that I was not influenced or persuaded to feel some sort of guilt or inclination towards having to do or be what I “was supposed” to. And that was hard to do because I walked away from friends, family, opportunity.

But every month I would go to the doctor and my blood pressure is lower than the month before. The doctor said to me last month, “Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it. It’s working.”

And I came home that evening and thought about that and realized what I was doing. I was letting it out. I was getting rid of all of the toxic and poisonous language and mess that was in my life. That was in my heart. That was in my head. I was writing stories that I needed to tell, to myself, in order to realize that I had come through. I had long tried to dismiss and distance myself from my past. In that, I had not ever dealt with how I felt or what I felt. I had run. I had hidden. I had avoided. I had lied to myself about who and what I was, and what I had been through.

And now I was writing it. Jumping all over the place. None of these stories making sense, in terms of fitting together. But one would lead to another. That would inspire the memory of another. And before I knew it I had remembered a long forgotten history. And in the darkness I saw flickers of light that were strong enough to illuminate old hopes and dreams. I started to feel differently about so many things, and such my feelings were validated and vindicated in the knowing of my own self. Certain, because I had come to enter an awareness that I had long thought I had been separated from.

—

Yesterday I was walking to the store and I spoke these words…

“I’m ready to talk.”

I didn’t even try to say it. It wasn’t loud. I was by myself. There was no conversation going on around me. There was only silence.

But yet I spoke those words…

“I’m ready to talk.”

And in that same moment I realized that the book that I’d been working on was not ever meant to be for the public that I thought I was writing it for. The book was for me. It wasn’t for presentation or performance. I once believed that I was writing the book for profit and for acclaim. I was writing it because I believed it to be my purpose. It wasn’t. It’s purpose was to get me to talk. It’s purpose was to get me to feel again. It’s purpose was to get me to remember. It’s purpose was to get me open.

This morning I awoke feeling a “different” than I have ever felt before. A weirdly wonderful that seems legitimately belonging to me. I woke up today feeling that I deserve to be. What ever follows “be” is my choice. It’s my choosing.

So I choose to SPEAK.

The book that I was writing was titled: “OPEN, for CLOSURE”. It was a story of how I got to a place of being vulnerable to change. How I got to a sense of belief and faith in the power of my own self. The book talked about tragedy and loss and grief and how families and communities often fail to protect us. It was a book about redemption and justification. It was a book of remorse and regret. It was a book that detailed, in detail, some of the rawest and most terrible moments of my life. It was a comeback story. The book was not an “I win” in the end story. The book was how it is to not win but to still have hope for victory. The book was a question, a question of what if the “good” never comes. What if the answer never is. What if the problem is never solved. What if “closure” never happens.

The book was about my life. It was about my story. And today I realized that I’d rather live it. I’ll write that book one day, a while from now. It will be a part of a different book. It will make much more sense for others at they time. But in this moment, writing it did what it was supposed to do, for me. It got me where it was supposed to get me, open.

Because I am “open, for closure” and such I have it. I am open to the idea and the opportunity. I’m open to the notion. I get it now.

I’ll start putting what I’ve written thus far on my blog. The book is better as a discussion. I’m going to be able to discuss it there.

—

At about 3 o’clock this morning I looked at the date:
July 23, 2014

8 years ago today, July 23, 2006, The Messengers reality show began to air. That show, and me publicly sharing parts of my life for a television audience, began this healing process. There were events and occurrences that happened during my experience with that show that started this process. I began to heal then. It’s taken 8 years. I hadn’t even thought about it, the show, in a long while. But when I thought about the day, this morning, I started to remember things that begun this journey. And it makes sense. To me, at least.

And I’m okay. I made it. I’m ready to talk. I’m open. I’m open for closure.